Monthly Archive for September, 2015

Nine anti-drone protesters from throughout Northern California – Redding to Stockton, Bay Area to Nevada City – were arrested in a nonviolent action at Beale Air Force Base on the morning of September 29. The group acted in solidarity with the refugees around the world who are fleeing their homes because of wars.

The peace and justice activists connected the tragic stories of the migrant crisis to U.S. policies that destabilize countries with ongoing bombing and violence and force the mass displacement and fleeing of millions of human beings. With their action, they wanted to draw attention to the serious global crisis, and demand that the U.S. government use peace and diplomacy to solve conflict. While at Beale, they publicly read some of the most recent horrifying migrant and refugee stories, detailing some of the thousands of lives lost while fleeing wars.

Just prior to the historic visit of Pope Francis to the U.S. on September 22, fifteen activists were arrested at the White House. They were part of a group participating in a National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) action entitled “Sowing the Seeds of Hope: From Congress to the White House”.

Three prayerful activists were arrested at Creech Air Force Base at 7:05 a.m. on September 21 while trying to enforce the International Day of Peace. One was charged with the alleged crime of “trespassing on government land” and two were charged with the alleged crime of “pedestrian in roadway”. All were part of a larger demonstration of a dozen people holding vigil at Creech on this international holiday. The three were released on-site with promises to appear on different court dates later this fall.

On the morning of Monday, September 21, members of the grassroots human rights coalition, Upstate Drone Action to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, were arrested for closing the main gate of Hancock Airfield to call a halt to the U.S. weaponized drone program operated out of Hancock by the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard. Hancock, in Dewitt, New York, is home to the “hunter/killer” (the Pentagon’s phrase) MQ9 Reaper drone. The theme of today’s event was: Drones Kill Children.

Those arrested include Dan Bergavin and James Ricks of Ithaca and Ed Kinane, Bonny Mahoney and Julienne Oldfield of Syracuse, who held signs reading “Drones Kill Children” behind wooden figures of drone victims, including dead and dying children.

After hearing arguments from both sides during a teleconference sentencing hearing on the morning of September 15, Judge Amul Thapar split the different between the defense’s request for no supervised probation and the government’s request for supervised probation for Sr. Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was arrested on September 10 because Israeli police, at the direction of the Shin Bet, claim his recent Channel 2 interview violates the terms of his release from prison (he was released in 2004 with strict conditions after serving his entire 18 year sentence). But government censors had approved the Channel 2 interview before it aired! After several hours of interrogation by police, he was released to 7 days of house arrest.

On September 9, 1980, six men and two women walked into a G.E. factory in Pennsylvania and smashed re-entry cones for nuclear missile warheads with hammers and poured blood on blueprints. Thank you, Dean Hammer, Fr. Carl Kabat, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Elmer Maas, Sr. Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush and John Schuchardt – the Plowshares Eight – for your vision and participation in the inaugural plowshares action. Elmer, Phil and Anne, Presente!

from the book Swords Into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament (1987), edited by Art Laffin and Anne Montgomery

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES

by Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

September 27, 1980, marked my first visit to the monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky since the death of Thomas Merton in 1968. I was asked to offer the homily at morning Mass; the text was from Matthew 11:25-30 (JB), for the feast of St. Vincent de Paul:

I bless you, Father of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and clever, and revealing them to the children…

Vanunu tells Channel 2: Israel’s nuclear program a danger to the world

Mordechai Vanunu, the former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant who was imprisoned for 18 years for divulging secrets related to Israel’s purported nuclear weapons program, gave his first interview to the Hebrew-language Israeli press on Friday.

Vanunu told Channel 2 that his decision to photograph sensitive nuclear facilities at Dimona, revealing information that Israel had kept secret until that point, was motivated by his desire to “inform the citizens of the Middle East, the world, and the state of Israel.”

Three peace activists followed by openDemocracy have been released from jail, but their work against nuclear weapons goes on.

“Sabotage of the national defense.” That was Judge Amal Thapar’s ruling when three peace protestors entered the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and daubed biblical slogans on the walls. Thapar handed down his judgment in May of 2013, and sentenced Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli to prison terms of three to five years each.

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